I have been talking to a company that provides telephone exchanges and services to companies this week on behalf of a client and it has highlighted a worrying backdoor. It turns out that many of these companies have a way to remotely connect to their exchange for support purposes - they can remotely control, configure and troubleshoot your system to get you back up and running. Exchanges often have additional modems in them to allow for remote connections. This is all very well and good from a managed service point of view, but what about the rest of your network? Can this be exploited to gain entry to your network? Quite possibly in some cases - it certainly needs to be included in your security audit and perimeter testing.
Talking about a specific company now, they supply the software to monitor and bill phone calls through the exchange. They remotely install, monitor and manage this software. How do they do that? Well, it turns out that they install LogMeIn on your machine. Now this will make outbound connections through the firewall to make the internal machine accessible from the outside world. Hang on; you're making my networked machine that controls my exchange and billing accessible by anyone? By default LogMeIn will use simple username/password type authentication.
The user who accesses the computer has to set up their account with LogMeIn and will use the same username and password combination on all machines as far as I can see. Does the company have a universal account that they use to remotely access the machines or does each user have their own? If the company uses one default username/password, then what happens if someone gets hold of that information or someone leaves? Does the password get changed? If everyone has their own account, then are they removed when they leave the company? As this is all done through the Web, they could still gain access if they aren't specifically removed from the user group.
How much do you trust all the employees of that external company? How much do you trust the disgruntled ex-employee from them who has access? It might not be that they are trying to attack you, but they may be careless about the credentials or not revoke them properly. Also, consider the case where all the internal employees of an organisation are required to have 2-factor authentication and remote access is locked down. What's the point? There is a simple username/password entry point into the network that bypasses all the secure remote access services you may have in place. How secure are the passwords that the external company use? Would they match up to your complexity requirements? If they are simple, easily guessed or shared, then they open full administrative control over a machine on your 'secure' internal network. Who patches the machine and who updates LogMeIn?
How about installing a keylogger in such a firm to pick up on their username/password combinations so that you can gain full access to every customer's network. Once on the internal machine, malware can easily be installed and attacks launched on other internal machines unhindered. How many organisations have followed best practice and installed a UTM firewall in the core of their network to segregate their servers, etc., from other internal machines? Would a machine running this software be on a normal user subnet or on the management subnet anyway? Do many SMEs have more than one subnet anyway?
Needless to say, my advice was to avoid installing LogMeIn on the machine and temporarily allow a more controlled access to the machine with a temporary account, all of which can be disabled immediately after remote installation is completed. This opens up the problem of how to obtain support, but access can be temporarily granted and then removed when support is required with relatively little effort.
Clearly any such system needs to be well documented and be part of the security audit. I would advise that companies also ask for security audit and policy information from any external company who has any kind of access to the network - this should be standard procedure.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Thursday, 20 May 2010
CQC Using Email to Verify Care Workers
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has decided to put registration of Care Providers online to make everything faster and easier for the providers. At least that's what they said. In practice, care providers had to fill in the online forms addressing standards that won't be published for another 5 months after the registration deadline. Ignoring all the problems, ridiculous re-branding to avoid inconsistencies and money wasted, there was a serious problem/lack of understanding that has lead to this blog post.
All care providers and managers have to register online individually and have to agree to particular terms in order to be registered and, therefore, trade. I have no problem with this as these care providers are looking after vulnerable people. However, it became obvious that there are serious problems with their system. First off, it isn't possible to change the owner's name if you make a mistake (they can't change it either apparently). Therefore, if you make a mistake, you now have to lie to say that all the details are correct, otherwise you can't register and you'll be out of business - not a good start.
However, this is overshadowed by the fact that the CQC uses only email to verify care managers. First of all they sent a 6-character password to the main business email address with the URL and details of how to log in (no paper verification was done at all). Don't they realise that email is all sent in plaintext and can be read by anyone with a packet sniffer? When logged in, the care provider has to fill in some initial forms as the owner and then list the care managers that they employ. Following this, each care manager is sent a 6-character password via email in order to log in and register their care service. There are a couple of problems with this. Firstly, the email addresses are just entered during the initial form filling exercise and are not checked and secondly, you can't reuse the same email address. So if you are the manager for more than one care service you have to use two different email addresses. The stupid thing is that they accept any email address from an alias to the same mailbox through to hotmail accounts with no checking at all.
They don't seem to realise that half the email addresses people use are just aliases onto other email accounts. On one of my accounts I have 9 email addresses all delivering mail to the same mailbox as they are various options of name and domain all relating to the same company. However, CQC would treat this as 9 different people. There is no checking done to see if that really is the care manager at all. Anyone could sign up as long as they intercept the initial password. Who has access to the standard email address for the organisation? Usually several people and usually not the actual owner of the business - the only person who should receive that email. Due to the way their system works, if someone were to intercept that email (such as a disgruntled ex-employee) they could sign up with a random free email address begin the registration process, not complete it and put the care provider out of business as they won't have registered in the set time.
This is mostly a PR exercise as far as I can see and a bad one. They say that they are checking providers and improving standards. However, it is perfectly possible for the owners and managers to be completely unaware of their registration process because no actual checking is done. In addition, to assume that two email addresses entered into a website are for two different people, and base your authentication on that, shows a lack of understanding of the technology that they are forcing on people.
Edit: 13/7/10
I sent an email to the CQC about this issue and being able to hold people to it legally a while back and a few days ago I received a reply. Here is the main bulk of their reply:
All care providers and managers have to register online individually and have to agree to particular terms in order to be registered and, therefore, trade. I have no problem with this as these care providers are looking after vulnerable people. However, it became obvious that there are serious problems with their system. First off, it isn't possible to change the owner's name if you make a mistake (they can't change it either apparently). Therefore, if you make a mistake, you now have to lie to say that all the details are correct, otherwise you can't register and you'll be out of business - not a good start.
However, this is overshadowed by the fact that the CQC uses only email to verify care managers. First of all they sent a 6-character password to the main business email address with the URL and details of how to log in (no paper verification was done at all). Don't they realise that email is all sent in plaintext and can be read by anyone with a packet sniffer? When logged in, the care provider has to fill in some initial forms as the owner and then list the care managers that they employ. Following this, each care manager is sent a 6-character password via email in order to log in and register their care service. There are a couple of problems with this. Firstly, the email addresses are just entered during the initial form filling exercise and are not checked and secondly, you can't reuse the same email address. So if you are the manager for more than one care service you have to use two different email addresses. The stupid thing is that they accept any email address from an alias to the same mailbox through to hotmail accounts with no checking at all.
They don't seem to realise that half the email addresses people use are just aliases onto other email accounts. On one of my accounts I have 9 email addresses all delivering mail to the same mailbox as they are various options of name and domain all relating to the same company. However, CQC would treat this as 9 different people. There is no checking done to see if that really is the care manager at all. Anyone could sign up as long as they intercept the initial password. Who has access to the standard email address for the organisation? Usually several people and usually not the actual owner of the business - the only person who should receive that email. Due to the way their system works, if someone were to intercept that email (such as a disgruntled ex-employee) they could sign up with a random free email address begin the registration process, not complete it and put the care provider out of business as they won't have registered in the set time.
This is mostly a PR exercise as far as I can see and a bad one. They say that they are checking providers and improving standards. However, it is perfectly possible for the owners and managers to be completely unaware of their registration process because no actual checking is done. In addition, to assume that two email addresses entered into a website are for two different people, and base your authentication on that, shows a lack of understanding of the technology that they are forcing on people.
Edit: 13/7/10
I sent an email to the CQC about this issue and being able to hold people to it legally a while back and a few days ago I received a reply. Here is the main bulk of their reply:
"Thank you for taking the time to write to us and we would acknowledge that the
points you correctly make present some element of risk. To reassure you, and
your customer, we were previously aware of each of those points and have
considered, with our compliance and legal teams, the balance of risk that they
present and any difficulties with legal status that could result, before making
a positive decision to implement in this manner."
"To further reassure you, we commission independent penetration testing of our systems prior to go live to assure their security."I did ask to see one of their security assessment reports, but was (unsurprisingly) turned down. I understand that they don't want everyone to know how their systems works as that could reveal further problems, but I would like to know what was actually said about this issue and how they justify it.
Monday, 10 May 2010
Series of Demo Videos of Trusteer's Rapport
I am currently producing a series of videos demonstrating the anti-spyware capabilities of Trusteer's Rapport. So far I have looked at keylogging software and screen capture. Specifically, I have demonstrated it with Zemana ScreenLogger, Zemana KeyLogger and SpyShelter. I will be adding more videos over the next few days. The first two videos are embedded below. (Edit: 17/05/10 - I have now added three more videos covering Zemana SSL Logger, AKLT and Snadboy's Revelation V2.)
Links to the YouTube videos are below:
Links to the YouTube videos are below:
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 1 - Zemana ScreenLogger
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 2 - Zemana KeyLogger
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 3 - SpyShelter
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 4 - AKLT
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 5 - Zemana SSL Logger
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 6 - Snadboy's Revelation V2
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 7 - Pharming Attack
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 8 - Amecisco Invisible Keylogger Stealth
- Trusteer's Rapport Demo 9 - Anti-Phishing Protection
Friday, 30 April 2010
InfoSecurity Europe 2010
Once again InfoSecurity Europe was an interesting place to visit. Lots of good sessions and interesting people to talk to. Most of the usual protagonists were there and the organisers have increased the educational part of the exhibition as well, which is good.
I thought I would put down a few things that I thought were noteworthy from the exhibition. I've already blogged about the GrIDsure anti-phishing sender verification and the new 3M mobile phone privacy filters, but there were a few other things I want to mention.
The first one is Panda Security's new Panda Cloud Internet Protection. This is a cloud-based service that provides consistent security and access policies to all machines within an organisation. The key thing is that it will protect mobile machines that are outside the corporate network with the same policies as those within the network. Protecting corporate machines when mobile is a big concern and a good way to reduce malware or hacking problems on the main network.
The usual problem is that mobile devices connect to public, unsecured (or badly secured) networks and either pick up some malware that they bring back with them, or they connect back remotely and open a soft doorway into the corporate network. By securing machines with this cloud service, it should stop them from being a soft target and weak link in your security chain. If you already do something similar by allowing VPN access into the corporate network and allowing them to create connections out, you are using additional bandwidth for this traffic and having to open a VPN connection, which isn't always wise.
Another topic talked about (mainly by Sophos) was the security, or lack thereof, when using social media. Graham Cluley gave a really good talk on the subject on the Sophos stand including the use of SPAM avatars on sites such as Twitter. The attack is centred around the fact that anti-SPAM filtering finds it hard to scan the content of images, e.g. by doing Optical Character Recognition (OCR). So, people have been putting written messages in their ID picture to get past any filtering. You can find out more from his blog.
The final mention has to go to Ian Mann from ECSC. He, once again, talked about several Social Engineering techniques to get past security. He stated that he always likes to see security guards when trying to gain unauthorised access, as it usually makes the system much less secure. He gave a talk in one of the main theatres as well as several talks on the ECSC stand, all of which were interesting. He has written a book called Hacking the Human, which is worth a read if you want to find out more.
Beyond that, most of the usual suspects were there and many things were as before with incremental changes and updates. There didn't seem to be a central theme or message from all the vendors or industry in general. Everyone seemed to be concentrating on their own topics and products. One new addition to the exhibition was the University Pavilion. I think this could be put to good use to show people what's coming over the horizon or how these technologies that the vendors are pushing actually work.
I thought I would put down a few things that I thought were noteworthy from the exhibition. I've already blogged about the GrIDsure anti-phishing sender verification and the new 3M mobile phone privacy filters, but there were a few other things I want to mention.
The first one is Panda Security's new Panda Cloud Internet Protection. This is a cloud-based service that provides consistent security and access policies to all machines within an organisation. The key thing is that it will protect mobile machines that are outside the corporate network with the same policies as those within the network. Protecting corporate machines when mobile is a big concern and a good way to reduce malware or hacking problems on the main network.
The usual problem is that mobile devices connect to public, unsecured (or badly secured) networks and either pick up some malware that they bring back with them, or they connect back remotely and open a soft doorway into the corporate network. By securing machines with this cloud service, it should stop them from being a soft target and weak link in your security chain. If you already do something similar by allowing VPN access into the corporate network and allowing them to create connections out, you are using additional bandwidth for this traffic and having to open a VPN connection, which isn't always wise.
Another topic talked about (mainly by Sophos) was the security, or lack thereof, when using social media. Graham Cluley gave a really good talk on the subject on the Sophos stand including the use of SPAM avatars on sites such as Twitter. The attack is centred around the fact that anti-SPAM filtering finds it hard to scan the content of images, e.g. by doing Optical Character Recognition (OCR). So, people have been putting written messages in their ID picture to get past any filtering. You can find out more from his blog.
The final mention has to go to Ian Mann from ECSC. He, once again, talked about several Social Engineering techniques to get past security. He stated that he always likes to see security guards when trying to gain unauthorised access, as it usually makes the system much less secure. He gave a talk in one of the main theatres as well as several talks on the ECSC stand, all of which were interesting. He has written a book called Hacking the Human, which is worth a read if you want to find out more.
Beyond that, most of the usual suspects were there and many things were as before with incremental changes and updates. There didn't seem to be a central theme or message from all the vendors or industry in general. Everyone seemed to be concentrating on their own topics and products. One new addition to the exhibition was the University Pavilion. I think this could be put to good use to show people what's coming over the horizon or how these technologies that the vendors are pushing actually work.
3M's Mobile Phone Privacy Filter
At this year's InfoSecurity Europe I visited the 3M stand again to see what developments they had for their privacy filters. They had their excellent Gold filter there of course, which is now properly on sale in the UK and the best on the market in my opinion. I previously blogged about this filter in my post "Why do I need a privacy filter? (3M's new Vikuiti Gold Privacy Filter)".
So what's this blog post about? Well, they have now produced privacy filters for mobile phones. Let's add a bit of context to this decision. How many businesses provide mobile devices to their employees that are connected to the corporate network with access to email, contacts, calendars and corporate documents? If you were reading an email from a client or reviewing a sensitive document would you be happy for someone to peer over your shoulder? Maybe you're paranoid like me and try to avoid reading emails in public places and stand with your back to the wall, shielding the screen when you have to read something urgently (Note: you shouldn't really store sensitive documents on a mobile phone in the first place, but that's another topic). However, 3M have made the whole thing a bit easier and allowed people to look a bit more normal than I do when using email in a public place.
I had a bunch of questions that I wanted to ask 3M about this new filter and I got some answers that I will share with you here. Firstly, I'll give you a brief introduction to their product, which can be seen in the image below. This is basically a screen protector with the privacy filter combined. It uses the standard matte grey louvered filter that gives privacy in one plane (I'll explain this in a bit and the problem with it). It uses the matte film as reflective films would get scratched with the type of use that a mobile gets according to the guys on the stand. The film is self-adhesive, using 3M's Post-It note glue, so it should come off with no residue and be easy to fit. This is effectively a replacement for your standard screen protector with the added benefit of including the privacy filter.
Now to some of the questions I had:
So what's this blog post about? Well, they have now produced privacy filters for mobile phones. Let's add a bit of context to this decision. How many businesses provide mobile devices to their employees that are connected to the corporate network with access to email, contacts, calendars and corporate documents? If you were reading an email from a client or reviewing a sensitive document would you be happy for someone to peer over your shoulder? Maybe you're paranoid like me and try to avoid reading emails in public places and stand with your back to the wall, shielding the screen when you have to read something urgently (Note: you shouldn't really store sensitive documents on a mobile phone in the first place, but that's another topic). However, 3M have made the whole thing a bit easier and allowed people to look a bit more normal than I do when using email in a public place.
I had a bunch of questions that I wanted to ask 3M about this new filter and I got some answers that I will share with you here. Firstly, I'll give you a brief introduction to their product, which can be seen in the image below. This is basically a screen protector with the privacy filter combined. It uses the standard matte grey louvered filter that gives privacy in one plane (I'll explain this in a bit and the problem with it). It uses the matte film as reflective films would get scratched with the type of use that a mobile gets according to the guys on the stand. The film is self-adhesive, using 3M's Post-It note glue, so it should come off with no residue and be easy to fit. This is effectively a replacement for your standard screen protector with the added benefit of including the privacy filter.
Now to some of the questions I had:
- Does it work with touch screens? - Yes it does. They had an iPhone there and it worked perfectly.
- Does it work with a stylus? - Yes it does. They had an Windows Mobile-based XDA there, which also worked with no problems.
- Does it make the mobile hard to use? - No, the dimming of the screen caused by the filter is not too much of a problem. With the backlight off you pretty much can't read the screen, but how many people use their mobile with the backlight off? There is some drop in brightness, but you can increase the brightness of the screen to compensate. However, this does have the big side-effect of reducing battery life - a major problem on smartphones.
- What if I have a mobile that I can use in landscape as well as portrait, like an HTC or iPhone? - Well, you have a problem. It comes back to what I said above: the filter only works in one plane. The filter has vertical louvres so that as you move to the side they overlap and block out the screen, like vertical blinds. However, vertical movement doesn't change the overlap of the louvres, so there is no blocking of the screen in this plane. So, you have to decide which way you want the filter, portrait or landscape - it will only provide privacy in one plane. Now, this isn't a problem for a lot of phones, particularly the majority of Blackberries, which are still the preferred business machine by many organisations. It is a problem, however, for iPhones (which aren't business phones in my opinion) and many Windows Mobile phones with the iPhone-esque interface.
- Couldn't we have the Gold filter on a mobile to sort this problem? - Unfortunately, not yet, but they are working on it. There are a few technical difficulties apparently. Firstly, there is the point I made earlier, that mirror finished filters would scratch too readily on a mobile device that is thrown in a bag or stuffed into a pocket with other things. Apparently, they have a matte version of the Gold Filter in the lab, but it isn't available yet or in the near future. There is a second problem. Apparently, the Gold Filter doesn't take to being glued so easily as the grey filter. However, they are working on this as well and hope to have a solution soon.
- Do they come pre-cut to my mobile? - Yes and no. If you have a Blackberry or iPhone then yes, otherwise no. You buy a sheet and cut it yourself. I believe that there are other companies, such as wrappz.com, that will be able to cut one for your device in the future. I think this is a must for the uptake of the filter. How many business executives are going to sit down with a craft knife and straight-edge to cut their filter to the exact shape and size of their phone as well as the holes for the buttons, cameras, speakers, microphones, etc.? The problem for 3M is that mobiles come in all shapes and sizes, with absolutely no standardisation. Laptops and monitors, on the other hand, do have standard sizes.
Surveys or Phishing Emails?
I was recently sent a survey from a well-known survey company (actually, on second thoughts, I'll name them: Capita) and it made me very cross. Why so cross? Well, I spend a considerable amount of time trying to educate people about their role in the security of the network and about phishing/social engineering. This is all undone by survey companies such as the one in question. See for yourself the email sent and use it as a template for future 'white-hat' testing.
What's wrong with this? Many things! Phishing scams are on the increase and are one of the biggest threats to security at the moment. Targeted phishing, or spear phishing, is also on the increase and these surveys could easily fall foul of this type of attack. The survey emails are in a standard format with no personalisation. It appears as a classic phishing email, albeit with better grammar. It would be easy to exploit this 'legitimate' survey to ask for additional personal details. Points to consider:
It gets worse though. When I phoned Capita Surveys, a nice helpful lady called Liz told me who they were currently providing surveys for (I won't give out the organisation names here as that would be irresponsible, but if Capita would like to check with me I can prove this). It would be very easy to quickly knock up a copy of their site with a similar URL and registered SSL Certificate, add in a few extra questions, send those emails and wait for the information to roll in. Well done Capita! They say they take people's security seriously and that answers are secure because they use SSL. However, I would beg to differ.
Capita aren't the only culprit though; I was also recently sent a survey for Microsoft from Mori, which was just as bad. They have to take steps to ensure that their surveys can't be hijacked for targeted attacks. There are anti-phishing technologies and techniques available that, whilst not infallible, would help, so why aren't they used?
Have your Say! Fill in your Staff Survey today!
Dear Colleague
It’s important to complete the Staff Survey to ensure your voice is heard! The purpose of the survey is to make further improvements to staffs’ working lives at Target Organisation.
Your responses will come direct to Capita Surveys & Research Unit, and will be totally anonymous. No one outside the research team – and certainly no one at Target Organisation – will know who has responded or be able to identify individual responses. The survey findings will be analysed by Capita Surveys & Research Unit and only aggregate results will be reported.
To ensure that you have adequate opportunity to participate, the survey closure date is date month year.
In order to participate in the survey visit:
https://sas.capitasurveys.co.uk/targetorganisation
and enter your password: AAdddd
If you have any queries or require support completing the survey please contact us at Capita Surveys & Research Unit on 0800 587 3115.
Yours sincerely
Cheryl Kershaw
Director of Surveys and Research
Capita Surveys & Research Unit
Dear Colleague
It’s important to complete the Staff Survey to ensure your voice is heard! The purpose of the survey is to make further improvements to staffs’ working lives at Target Organisation.
Your responses will come direct to Capita Surveys & Research Unit, and will be totally anonymous. No one outside the research team – and certainly no one at Target Organisation – will know who has responded or be able to identify individual responses. The survey findings will be analysed by Capita Surveys & Research Unit and only aggregate results will be reported.
To ensure that you have adequate opportunity to participate, the survey closure date is date month year.
In order to participate in the survey visit:
https://sas.capitasurveys.co.uk/targetorganisation
and enter your password: AAdddd
If you have any queries or require support completing the survey please contact us at Capita Surveys & Research Unit on 0800 587 3115.
Yours sincerely
Cheryl Kershaw
Director of Surveys and Research
Capita Surveys & Research Unit
What's wrong with this? Many things! Phishing scams are on the increase and are one of the biggest threats to security at the moment. Targeted phishing, or spear phishing, is also on the increase and these surveys could easily fall foul of this type of attack. The survey emails are in a standard format with no personalisation. It appears as a classic phishing email, albeit with better grammar. It would be easy to exploit this 'legitimate' survey to ask for additional personal details. Points to consider:
- There is no personalisation – ‘Dear Colleague’
- The email doesn’t come from the organisation in question – staffsurveys@Capita.co.uk
- The URL does not point to the organisation in question – https://sas.capitasurveys.co.uk/organisationname
- There is no contact within the organisation presented in the email for confirmation – contact Capita Surveys & Research Unit on 0800 587 3115
- They do not use an EV SSL certificate on their site, only DV – QuoVadis Global SSL ICA certifying that this is sas.capitasurveys.co.uk, which could be a phishing site for all a user knows, as it isn’t certified to be Capita or Capita Surveys & Research Unit (see post on EV versus DV certificates)
It gets worse though. When I phoned Capita Surveys, a nice helpful lady called Liz told me who they were currently providing surveys for (I won't give out the organisation names here as that would be irresponsible, but if Capita would like to check with me I can prove this). It would be very easy to quickly knock up a copy of their site with a similar URL and registered SSL Certificate, add in a few extra questions, send those emails and wait for the information to roll in. Well done Capita! They say they take people's security seriously and that answers are secure because they use SSL. However, I would beg to differ.
Capita aren't the only culprit though; I was also recently sent a survey for Microsoft from Mori, which was just as bad. They have to take steps to ensure that their surveys can't be hijacked for targeted attacks. There are anti-phishing technologies and techniques available that, whilst not infallible, would help, so why aren't they used?
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Which Browser is the Most Secure?
I was recently talking to a fellow security professional who develops secure plug-ins for browsers and we started talking about the security of various different browsers. Most of the talk around browsers centres around how fast they are and what sort of features they have, but rarely do people talk about the security of their browser. Unfortunately, the browser is one of your weak points on the network as users have the ability to navigate to sites containing malware or phishing attacks as well as install plug-ins or run scripts that are malicious. So, which browser is the most secure? Any guesses?
All browsers (and all security products for that matter) have security weaknesses and vulnerabilities. However, the architecture of the browser and certain features can make browsing safer. The feature I'm going to put forward first is web browser protection against socially-engineered malware (phishing sites). According to many of the big AV and security vendors, phishing is on the rise and set to be the biggest headache of this year. Two statistics worth quoting are: according to Trend Micro, 53% of malware is delivered via Internet downloads against only 12% via e-mail; and Microsoft claim that 0.5% of the download requests through IE8 are malicious and they block a download for one in 40 users every week. In January 2010 NSS Labs tested five of the latest browsers against socially-engineered malware. Their full report is worth reading, but I have shamelessly reproduced their main graph here.
According to NSS Labs, Internet Explorer 8 blocked 85% of these malware sites using their SmartScreen Filter. The next nearest was Safari 4 at 29% and 0.2% behind that was Firefox 3.5. Chrome 4 was worse, on only 17%, and Opera 10 was bottom of the pile, achieving less than 1% blocking. By far the best of the pack was IE8, but even that still lets through 15% of malware. An interesting and noteworthy aside to this is that I believe Safari and Firefox use Google's Anti-Phishing API and achieve a 29% blocking rate, yet Google's Chrome only achieves 17%. If you want to see what the SmartScreen blocking looks like in IE8, you can see an example below, where IE8 is blocking it and Comodo's Dragon (a Chrome derivative) is not.
Also, again according to NSS Labs, Firefox had an 'average add time' of 5.7 hours, the fastest, versus Microsoft's 6.7 hours. The average add time is how long on average does a user have to wait before a visited malicious site is added to the block list. Speed is very important here, but it does actually have to get blocked in the end to make this a valid metric. These figures are better than the other three browsers, which scored: Safari - 9.0 hours; Chrome - 14.7 hours; Opera 82.4 hours.
Having mentioned Comodo's Dragon now I will give you a brief introduction, if you haven't heard of it before. It is a free Chrome derivative browser from Comodo. This browser has been designed to be more secure than the average browser. It doesn't perform well in the above tests, but has several other features up its sleeve centred around privacy. Some of the main features include not sending the HTTP Referrer so that you cannot be tracked from site to site, it won't send crash and problem reports (so your history remains on your machine only), it highlights DV only secured sites and will give a visit history with the certificates. If you don't know the difference between a DV and an EV SSL/TLS Certificate then read this blog post. An example of the DV certificate warning can be seen in the screenshot below.
One problem I have with the privacy tag associated with this browser is the UserAgent string. I have blogged about Cookieless Browser Tracking by using the UserAgent string before. The point is that the string sent to a web server by your browser to identify its and your machine's capabilities gives about a third of the information required to uniquely identify you. There will only be a handful of machines with the same UserAgent string, especially if you stray from the most common browsers (IE & Firefox). I also think that 'Never save passwords' should be the default setting and 'Allow all cookies' should not be the default setting. It is a new browser though, and I'm sure it will improve over time as the company is committed to security in many guises. Certainly its positive features are good and something that other browser vendors should follow.
The next point is about actual downloads from the Internet. Dragon, and other browsers, will give a warning when downloading executable files, but will just download ZIP, PDF, etc., and allow you to open them without warning. Bear in mind that PDFs and ZIP archives can contain malware. IE8, on the other hand, will ask you to confirm the software used to open a download, regardless of its type. This will always give you the chance to opt out if it wasn't what you were expecting. Also, IE8 will tell you if it is a signed or unsigned download, if it is a plug-in or an executable. Other browsers do not support this feature. What does it mean though? Well, if I am a software vendor, like Adobe, and I want you to download and install my plug-in I will sign it with a digital signature. When you download it, you can verify the signature, which will tell you that I (or Adobe) created and signed the download and that nobody has tampered with it in the meantime. If the download isn't signed, then how do you know that this isn't a phishing or pharming site pretending to be Adobe (or intercepting the download with a proxy) giving you a version containing a Trojan or some other malware? The answer is that you don't!
So, you should only download and install signed plug-ins and executables. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer is one of the few browsers that will control this for you and it makes a distinction between signed and unsigned plug-ins even when they are installed. Which brings me onto my final point (as this post is getting very long and a bit like a rant). Internet Explorer is, I believe, the most attacked browser as it has, until recently, been the most widely used. Due to this, Microsoft has had to build it in a secure fashion, controlling all plug-ins carefully. Firefox, on the other hand, performs many of its tasks by using a plug-in architecture, even for standard functionality. As far as I am aware, there is little or no distinction between a 'built-in' plug-in and one installed from a third party at a later date. This is very dangerous in my opinion. Firefox now enjoys the top position for browsers and it won't be long before the hackers make the switch from attacking IE over to Firefox. I think it will be harder to secure Firefox against this onslaught than it will be for Microsoft to keep up with their architecture.
It is interesting to note that the speed of the browser runs roughly inversely to the graph at the beginning of this post, i.e. Chrome is very fast and IE is considered the slowest of the big 4. However, security always comes at a price - processing being a big loser. Could it be that the reason why IE is such a leviathan and slower than its rivals is because they're doing much more checking and keeping you much more secure? I think so. Microsoft have a way to go though and can't rest on their laurels. I will be watching Comodo Dragon with interest to see if they can really push for the top spot in terms of a secure browser. It certainly does something for user education and privacy.
All browsers (and all security products for that matter) have security weaknesses and vulnerabilities. However, the architecture of the browser and certain features can make browsing safer. The feature I'm going to put forward first is web browser protection against socially-engineered malware (phishing sites). According to many of the big AV and security vendors, phishing is on the rise and set to be the biggest headache of this year. Two statistics worth quoting are: according to Trend Micro, 53% of malware is delivered via Internet downloads against only 12% via e-mail; and Microsoft claim that 0.5% of the download requests through IE8 are malicious and they block a download for one in 40 users every week. In January 2010 NSS Labs tested five of the latest browsers against socially-engineered malware. Their full report is worth reading, but I have shamelessly reproduced their main graph here.
According to NSS Labs, Internet Explorer 8 blocked 85% of these malware sites using their SmartScreen Filter. The next nearest was Safari 4 at 29% and 0.2% behind that was Firefox 3.5. Chrome 4 was worse, on only 17%, and Opera 10 was bottom of the pile, achieving less than 1% blocking. By far the best of the pack was IE8, but even that still lets through 15% of malware. An interesting and noteworthy aside to this is that I believe Safari and Firefox use Google's Anti-Phishing API and achieve a 29% blocking rate, yet Google's Chrome only achieves 17%. If you want to see what the SmartScreen blocking looks like in IE8, you can see an example below, where IE8 is blocking it and Comodo's Dragon (a Chrome derivative) is not.
Also, again according to NSS Labs, Firefox had an 'average add time' of 5.7 hours, the fastest, versus Microsoft's 6.7 hours. The average add time is how long on average does a user have to wait before a visited malicious site is added to the block list. Speed is very important here, but it does actually have to get blocked in the end to make this a valid metric. These figures are better than the other three browsers, which scored: Safari - 9.0 hours; Chrome - 14.7 hours; Opera 82.4 hours.
Having mentioned Comodo's Dragon now I will give you a brief introduction, if you haven't heard of it before. It is a free Chrome derivative browser from Comodo. This browser has been designed to be more secure than the average browser. It doesn't perform well in the above tests, but has several other features up its sleeve centred around privacy. Some of the main features include not sending the HTTP Referrer so that you cannot be tracked from site to site, it won't send crash and problem reports (so your history remains on your machine only), it highlights DV only secured sites and will give a visit history with the certificates. If you don't know the difference between a DV and an EV SSL/TLS Certificate then read this blog post. An example of the DV certificate warning can be seen in the screenshot below.
One problem I have with the privacy tag associated with this browser is the UserAgent string. I have blogged about Cookieless Browser Tracking by using the UserAgent string before. The point is that the string sent to a web server by your browser to identify its and your machine's capabilities gives about a third of the information required to uniquely identify you. There will only be a handful of machines with the same UserAgent string, especially if you stray from the most common browsers (IE & Firefox). I also think that 'Never save passwords' should be the default setting and 'Allow all cookies' should not be the default setting. It is a new browser though, and I'm sure it will improve over time as the company is committed to security in many guises. Certainly its positive features are good and something that other browser vendors should follow.
The next point is about actual downloads from the Internet. Dragon, and other browsers, will give a warning when downloading executable files, but will just download ZIP, PDF, etc., and allow you to open them without warning. Bear in mind that PDFs and ZIP archives can contain malware. IE8, on the other hand, will ask you to confirm the software used to open a download, regardless of its type. This will always give you the chance to opt out if it wasn't what you were expecting. Also, IE8 will tell you if it is a signed or unsigned download, if it is a plug-in or an executable. Other browsers do not support this feature. What does it mean though? Well, if I am a software vendor, like Adobe, and I want you to download and install my plug-in I will sign it with a digital signature. When you download it, you can verify the signature, which will tell you that I (or Adobe) created and signed the download and that nobody has tampered with it in the meantime. If the download isn't signed, then how do you know that this isn't a phishing or pharming site pretending to be Adobe (or intercepting the download with a proxy) giving you a version containing a Trojan or some other malware? The answer is that you don't!
So, you should only download and install signed plug-ins and executables. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer is one of the few browsers that will control this for you and it makes a distinction between signed and unsigned plug-ins even when they are installed. Which brings me onto my final point (as this post is getting very long and a bit like a rant). Internet Explorer is, I believe, the most attacked browser as it has, until recently, been the most widely used. Due to this, Microsoft has had to build it in a secure fashion, controlling all plug-ins carefully. Firefox, on the other hand, performs many of its tasks by using a plug-in architecture, even for standard functionality. As far as I am aware, there is little or no distinction between a 'built-in' plug-in and one installed from a third party at a later date. This is very dangerous in my opinion. Firefox now enjoys the top position for browsers and it won't be long before the hackers make the switch from attacking IE over to Firefox. I think it will be harder to secure Firefox against this onslaught than it will be for Microsoft to keep up with their architecture.
It is interesting to note that the speed of the browser runs roughly inversely to the graph at the beginning of this post, i.e. Chrome is very fast and IE is considered the slowest of the big 4. However, security always comes at a price - processing being a big loser. Could it be that the reason why IE is such a leviathan and slower than its rivals is because they're doing much more checking and keeping you much more secure? I think so. Microsoft have a way to go though and can't rest on their laurels. I will be watching Comodo Dragon with interest to see if they can really push for the top spot in terms of a secure browser. It certainly does something for user education and privacy.
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